The Shame of Cain
by Rose Rovente
Summary: An unwise decision is made, and 20-year-old Harry is an unassuming Muggle once again. Is it too late to undo the damage? Rated M for violence, language, and sad stuff.
1. The Boy Who Sold Shoes

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything, don't make any money, didn't write the books, didn't think of the characters… now please, let me bask in the patheticness of my unoriginality.

**WARNING**: Sirius is alive in this story. I started writing it before book 5 came out, and it was never meant to be an AU. If you must think of it as an AU to enjoy it, please do. I can't change it for two reasons: 1) I worked too hard on it and 2) Sirius is the only character that could realistically set into motion the events that this story deals with. So pretend for a minute that he never fell into the curtain thing... how was I to know she was gonna kill him off?

**The Shame of Cain**

By Rose Rovente

**Chapter One**

**The Boy Who Sold Shoes**

"You there! Er—Larry." A volcano-esque woman in massive red housedress jabbed the skinny salesman in the back with her cane, squinting to read his nametag.

"I'm Harry, madam." The young salesman said brightly. "Harry Potter."

Knocking her cane on a mountain of shoeboxes, the woman squeezed herself rather impressively into a tiny metal chair. "Don't you be smart with me, boy. Help me try these on."

Harry dove obediently into the shoes, producing a massive red heel with bows cascading down the toe. "These first, ma'am? They go lovely with your gown."

The fat woman snorted. "Hideous. Perfectly hideous."

"Alright ma'am. How about-"

"Not the shoe, imbecile. You!" The woman extended a beefy leg. "Put it on."

"Yes, madam."

"And don't you go trying to look up my skirt! That's why I've brought this cane." She sliced the air with it. "Take one little peak and I'll send you flying!"

"Yes, madam-" Harry paused with a sudden, sharp pain in his head. But rubbing it earned him a swat with the cane, so he dropped to his knees and took the woman's gigantic foot in his hand. The shoe slid nicely over her toes, but- "It's doesn't look quite long enough. Perhaps a slightly larger size."

"Oh!" The obese woman shrieked suddenly, wrestling her foot away from Harry. "How perfectly _nauseating_. Where is your manager?"

"Madam?"

"Get away from me!" The woman gave him a push with her foot; he fell over onto his bottom. "Wretched thing! You'll ruin my dress. Where is your manager? HELP! Get this horrid thing away from me!"

Harry had no idea what was happening, only that the woman was very badly aggravating his headache. He crawled away from her and squeezed his eyes shut, kneading furiously at his temples.

"What seems to be the problem?" Harry heard his boss say. "Oh. Harry- you're bleeding again."

"She hit me with her cane." Harry winced; his head pounded.

"Did she? Let me see." His manager pulled him to his feet. "Well lucky for her, it's not that. It's the scar."

"You there! Ted. Are you the manager of this zoo?"

"-Fred Weasley, co-owner, madam."

"How do you explain this? Bleeding all over the customers!"

Harry felt a handkerchief being pressed against the scar on his forehead. Fred guided him to a chair and made him sit, and Harry realized he felt very sleepy.

"…horrible service…" the woman was screaming, "…never come back here…"

"Out with you, cow," Fred said.

"WELL! NEVER IN MY LIFE!"

Harry squeezed his eyes shut. He heard the woman brandishing her cane at Fred, threatening him with strange words that only vaguely sounded like English. He heard Fred laugh maniacally and call, "Is that how it's going to be, old witch? Well I have a surprise for you!"

There was a flash of light and Harry heard the woman rumble out the door, shrieking, and Fred calling for George—

He remembered nothing after that, until he found himself lying on the counter in the stockroom.

They were all staring expectantly at him: Fred, George, Ron, and Harry's Uncle Dash.

"What happened?" Harry asked.

No sooner than Harry realized it had been there, a heavy tension vanished from the room.

Ron exhaled sharply; Fred elbowed him.

"He didn't see anything," Fred said.

Dash shot Fred a look, then turned to Harry and smiled. "Nothing happened, Harry. You were napping."

"I was?"

"You look tired," George said, patting Harry on the shoulder. "Why don't you go home."

"But I just—"

"You _still_ look tired," Fred corrected quickly. "Even after your nap. On with your coat."

"But-"

"Here's your keys," Ron said.

"Here are your glasses," Dash said.

"Remember, if you feel dizzy-"

"- I should pull over," Harry finished. "But-"

A few minutes later Harry stood in tears in the large parking lot of the strip mall that contained _Two Left Feet_, the store where he worked. All the cars— they looked so much alike. He wasn't sure which one was his. He didn't want Fred and George or Dash to know this. They worried about him too much already. And he wasn't about to try and open every single car door. No option but to walk, then, and so Harry started up the road. The tears _really _begin to spill at the end of the vast parking lot- Harry couldn't remember in which direction to go.

He was crouched by a newspaper box, slapping his forehead and sobbing when Dash found him.

"Harry? Harry! What are you-"

"I…" Harry stood, wiping the wet quickly off his face, "I… I-I just read a really sad article in the… in the… a boy's puppy died…"

He had lied so badly just then that he expected Dash to scold him, but instead they just stared at each other a moment. Dash looked sad. He scratched his elbow, ran a hand through the dark tangles of his hair, and seemed to being thinking something over.

"This has to stop," said Ron, who had come up behind them with Fred and George.

Dash jumped.

"Shut it, Ron," Fred said warningly. "Just leave it, for once."

"No—look at him. Just look. This is—"

Harry interrupted him with the story of the dead puppy. Ron shot his twin brothers a deadly look.

"You see what I mean?" He said, "How much longer-"

"-come on, Harry," Dash said, locking his arm around Harry's neck and jerking him away, "I'll drive you home."

Harry was quite sure that nobody had bought his story, and so, defeated, he let Dashiell lead him to a car that was supposedly his, though he could swear he had never seen it before in his life.


	2. Dashiell Peasegood, Obliviator

**CHAPTER TWO**

**Dashiell Peasegood, Obliviator **

My name is Dashiell Peasegood, and I killed Harry Potter.

As a kid I always dreamt of learning Memory Charms like my father did for a living—I wanted to make my older brother, Arnold Jr., docile and stupid, so sometimes I would take a twig from the garden and wave it at him like a wand but it never worked and somehow it always ended up in his hand and he would be hitting me with it, _drum drum drum, _ha-ha Dash, listen to your hollow head.

When we were little and Arnold Jr. was angry with me all my hair would fall out or my toys would spontaneously brake, but nothing ever happened to him, no matter how angry I got. One year I got a toy broomstick for my birthday but when I sat on it, it fell right to the ground. Dad sat me down and told me what a Squib was and how he and mom would always love me anyway, but I knew that was a lie and that they were ashamed to have me as a son.

When I was eleven an owl came with a letter from Hogwarts for me, just like it had for Arnold Jr. two year before, but instead of being happy and picking me up and spinning me around, Dad shook his head and said _oh, how awful, _and Mum stared at me and cried while Dad owled Dumbledore to say it was all a big mistake, my son hasn't an once of magic in his blood.

But Dumbledore said it was no mistake, and in the wand shop Mr. Olivander looked around at all the boxes and boxes of wands and shook his head just like Dad did.

"I think for once old Dumbledore was mistaken," he said gently. But he kept handing me wands and making me wave them, and I waved them until my shoulders were sore and I was bawling to go home but they kept saying _one more, just one more_. Finally a little seven inch oak wand with a dwarf's thumb core spit out a little bit of spark and Mr. Olivander said, without a smile, "There it is."

Dumbledore wouldn't let them expel me from Hogwarts, even though I could barely levitate a feather and one time I was trapped outside the school for hours and hours because no matter how hard I looked at Hogwarts it was just an abandoned castle with a crumbling main entrance and a sign warning me to stay away.

"Just like what Muggles see,"Arnold Jr. said to me that night after I'd finally been rescued. "You're nothing but a common Muggle, that's what you are. A common Muggle."

Maybe just to embarrass myself I pointed my wand, which I'd been using to scratch my back, right between his eyes. Our dorm mates turned and all of them were laughing at me, _what are you going to do with that, Dash? Shove it in his arse? _

My chest grew hot and heavy and I felt a surge down my arm and before I could think I yelled "_OBLIVIATE_!" like I did in the garden when Arnold Jr. and I were little.

There was a great flash and the room was quiet. No one was laughing anymore, especially not Arnold Jr., who was swaying on his feet, one of his eyelids sagging like it was paralyzed. At first we thought he was joking, and soon the dorm mates were laughing uncomfortably: _good act, Junior. _

Then Arnold Jr. fell to the floor and wouldn't get up and wouldn't speak, though his eyes were open and he was breathing. He wet his pants and his jaw was hanging open, frothy white drool oozing from the corners of his mouth.

Arnold Jr. spent the next three months at St. Mungo's. My father said it was lucky I didn't know what I was doing, or my brother would have had to stay there for the rest of his life. Nobody blamed me, he said, and I knew that was a lie, too. He insisted I go back to Hogwarts and finish studying, and by my seventh year I could levitate a feather a couple of feet and had learned how to unlock a door with magic and a few other things, but that was all. My career path was crystal clear.

I was too young to be an Obliviator. I should have been in a nasty little flat somewhere in Hogsmeade, getting drunk, sleeping with a different girl every night, waking up with my hair in conk of vomit-Pomade just like every other no-talent wizard that somehow managed to squeak through Hogwarts.

Just like them I should have found a nice Muggle girl to settle down with, gone to work at a factory and forgotten I was ever a wizard. It would have been better for everyone. But I was an idiot seventeen-year-old and the Ministry recruiters--they kept using words like _exceptionally talented _and _destined for greatness_ to describe me - the same words they used to describe the famous Harry Potter and words they _never_ used to speak of Arnold Jr.

I should have known there was something wrong.

The first day of training they lined us up in a large room in front of crooked, dazed rows of Muggles, dozens of pink-eyed, pale Muggles, Oblivated so many times by now that their brains were mush and leaking in pins of blood from their ears. They were wasted and ragged and wore stained white frocks. But we didn't question the humanity of it; Voldemort was back and times were desperate.

_Take their memories away, _my instructor said, and I did. In one messy toss of a spell, my peers and I wiped their brains as clean as your Mum's kitchen floor. If you handed them a toothbrush they wouldn't have known what to do with it, and if you told them, they wouldn't have understood because we took away their ability to speak English.

Then came the Muggles who were fully aware and scared to death.

_Take away their memories of ever being here, _my instructor said, _Points off for full erasure. _

Arnold Jr. told my instructor that sometimes I cry when I try too hard, which wasn't true, but to go easy on me the instructor gave me an already loopy old woman who kept calling me Brian. She told me I needed more sunlight. _Pale as death, Brian my boy_, she said to me. She offered me invisible plates of brownies with invisible milk to wash it down. I took away the memory of her son first, an auror who had been killed by Death Eaters years and years before Harry Potter was even born.

Next was an angry man in a suit. Two of my instructor's assistants held him by the elbows. He screamed and spat like a rabid cat, kicking his legs out. My classmates laughed because the man thought he could escape and they clapped and egged me on.

_Get him, Dash! _

But there was something else. The man wasn't just angry at getting plucked off the street and kidnapped by wizards. Without thinking I turned my wand and touched the man's forehead and the whole room stopped to stare at me. I felt all around his skull, from his temples to nape of his neck, until I found where the most painful memories were stored. It was warm there. The memories played in my head like an old, old film through muddy water, but I saw and heard them just the same. I removed only the ones that would ease his anger.

When the man was three years old he owned a cat that meowed too much and his Dad would always yell and scream _goddamn that fucking cat, _until one day the cat had kittens and Dad put them all in a sack and left. The cat and kittens never came back and neither did Dad. His Mum told him everyday that it was his fault Dad never came back, _if only you could have kept the goddamn cat from meowing_, and the man grew up thinking that all women are nothing but pains in the ass, and who needs them anyway, because all anyone does is leave you.

At some point my wand fell to the floor and I just stood there holding the man's head with my eyes closed, whispering the spell I knew so well. And when I was done the man was practically purring with joy.

_Amazing, _my classmates said.

_He's unbelievable,_ my instructor said.

I boasted and felt just dandy about myself for the rest of the day, but that night instead of dreaming wild fantasies of impressing women with my powerful magic skills, I awoke with nightmares of an old woman's loneliness, and old woman with a dead son named Brian and the angry man's cheating wife and missing father, both like an unseen fist around my chest and throat. I woke up choking and it was weeks before I could take a deep breath again.

The memories strangle me. It is their way of keeping alive; each and every one of my victims form a fiber in an ever-tightening rope around my neck and every day it's harder to breathe.

Someday they'll suffocate me, and I'll deserve it.

The night I murdered Harry Potter, Arnold Jr. woke me by tossing a galosh at my head. "Wake up, Dash-for-it! Old You-Know-Who strikes again!"

I sat to curse him. Everyone else in the Ministry barracks was half-dressed and ready to go.

"What's going on?" I said.

"Harry got him!" My fellow Obliviators cried.

"He's dead for good-"

"-Dumbledore's sure of it!"

"Right smack in the middle of hundreds Muggle houses!"

"A fiasco!"

"We're gonna be up all night!"

And my bunkmates laughed and rubbed their palms together as if we were to spend the evening at a topless bar.

The memories pressed hard.

Destined for greatness. Shit. I am a slayer of time and a taker of life, the violator and rapist of the only thing people have to measure the quality and meaning of their lives: memories. For who has truly lived when they've no one, not even themselves, to remember?

* * *

I dream about it every night.

Privet Drive is still smoldering though the rain beats down like darts on metal and the sidewalks are gleaming with blood.

The first wave has already arrived: a dying Dumbledore (they say the exposure that night is what finally killed him) is fighting off droves of Ministry officials and frightened civilians. Muggles, everywhere. Most are soft-minded enough to send dazedly into the darkness, but few of the policemen and Muggle ambulance drivers have been locked in their vehicles to await the more gifted Obliviators. These Muggles sit in shock, some crying, some beating and cursing at their windows.

The boy I now know as Ron is half mad. He sits in the wet debris, wailing, waving Harry's bloody school tie over his head. Hagrid, waist deep in the rubble, is tossing bodies and bloody planks this way and that, roaring Harry's name over the rain. Hermione's body lay abandoned on the sidewalk, her arms folded deliberately as if she were lying in a coffin.

All up and down the street the lights have been knocked out or put to sleep, but the scene is lit by an enormous full moon that clouds are struggling to dim and bury.

I am exhausted and on my eighth fireman. It is hard to feel his head through the sheets of rain, a wall of water. He has sprayed his hair with Muggle balding potions and it runs all down his face and turns my hands black. He sputters and I sputter and we are a sticky black sputtering mess. Arnold Jr. is calling me an idiot and clawing at my shoulder.

"Just wipe his fucking head clean! Can you do _anything_ right-" Finally he tears me away and goes to work on the fireman himself.

When the fireman was five, he was happy to go stay at his Grandma's because his house was haunted and nobody believed him. But the ghosts followed him to his Grandmother's and in the morning his Grandmother beat him and made him mow the big lawn as punishment his lies. The ghosts followed him all around the garden all day, laughing.

I wheeze and Arnold spins around and tells me to stop acting like a Nancy, knocking me too hard on the back.

"Get in that fucking ambulance and take care of the drivers, Nancy," he laughs, and shoves me off toward a van with its lights still revolving and flashing and lighting up the rain.

"OH THANK MERLIN," I hear Hagrid call. He flings a chimney shaft out of the way and falls to his knees. "HE'S ALIVE!"

Ahead, the crowd is running into the wreckage toward Harry Potter. I hear the _pop _of someone Apparating, and everyone stops abruptly in a semi-circle, speaking soothing words to someone I can't see. I can't see who just Apparated to the scene but I can hear him, growling deeply, "GET AWAY FROM US! GET AWAY FROM US!"

I start to go up there but my brother twists my shirt collar from behind. So I get in the ambulance like a good boy and start working on the Muggles that have been stuffed inside. They're practically piled one on top of the other, and Arnold Jr. stands outside, hauling the ones I have finished out of the ambulance and shoving them off into the rain.

I am finishing my fifth Muggle when I hear a thud and Arnold Jr. isn't there anymore. The man I now know as Sirius is standing in front of me panting, some skinny boy buried in his arms. The boy's leg is mangled and caked with blood. I can't see his face.

"Are you an Obliviator?" He screams.

I nod.

"Take him," Sirius says. He shoves the boy at me. With a wave of his wand, he sends the last few Muggles flying out the back of the van. Most of them land face down on the pavement and two of them take off running, chased by a crowd of Ministry officials.

They leap over my brother, who is lying on the ground unconscious, big and blonde and strong, the exact opposite of me, dark, mousy, and thin, and I smirk and hope quietly that he'll stay asleep forever.

Sirius hops into the back of the van, slamming the doors shut. He pushes passed me and up to the front, where one Muggle still sits, crying and shaking.

"Drive," Sirius orders her.

"What?" The Muggle cries. She has a round face and shiny hair and might have been pretty, but her eyes are puffy and there is snot dripping down her face. "What is going on out there?"

Sirius draws his wand and points it at her nose. The Muggle knows by now what a wand can do; her Muggle friends have been sent out of this very van, dazed and wobbling away like zombies, and so she turns the key and the engine starts. From outside come frantic thuds - wizards beating on the side of the van. I hear Dumbledore calling for Sirius to come out, but Sirius is sealing the doors and windows. We drive away, the Muggle shaking and sobbing, Sirius cursing and stumbling around the van like someone trapped, and me, holding this boy in my arms.

The boy has a high fever. He's so hot it makes me break a sweat. For the first time I have the chance to look down at him. He is very thin, white in the face, and his forehead is swollen and bleeding in the shape of a--

"Oh my Merlin!" I scream. "Is this Harry Potter?"

"Yes," Sirius' voice is dripping with contempt, "Isn't it fucking amazing."

It _is _amazing. I'm holding the famous Harry Potter in my arms.

"Give him to me."

And I do. I don't think for a moment that he is kidnapping Harry Potter, because of the way he holds him close and so gently wipes the blood and grime from his face.

"You've got to fix his leg," I tell him, "It's swelling bad."

"I can't mend bones," Sirius tells me, "Can you?"

I shake my head. Sirius grumbles something about how we can't go to St. Mungo's and that he's done with magic anyway, he and his boy will get along just fine without it. Then suddenly he is staring at me. I move my hair, stuck in dark tendrils to my face with the rain and Muggle Hair Potion, so that he can see me better.

Back then I wanted to be famous. I am so very fucking pleased when he asks if I am Dashiell Peasegood, the _exceptionally talented_ Obliviator.

"I am," I say smugly.

"Perfect," Sirius says, "Do the driver, and then I'll make her take us to a Muggle hospital."

At the Muggle hospital, Harry is whisked away and I turn to leave but Sirius won't let me. I have to stay and erase our being here, he says. He tells me if I try and Apparate he will find me and kill me.

"I can't Apparate," I guiltily admit.

"Good. Stay here," he says.

Hours later it is dawn and I'm so tired. We're in some werewolf's hut and minutes ago a man in rags crawled in and collapsed on the floor. Sirius tells me his name is Remus. Remus and Harry sleep painfully in the morning light.

Sirius refused the pills they tried to give him at the hospital and Harry hurts so bad that he squirms and moans in and out of consciousness. He is talking to Voldemort, pleading and begging with Voldemort to take the spell off him so he can bring Hermione back to life because she can't really be dead because Harry doesn't know _Avada Kedavra _and he doesn't want to. A couple of times he tries to get up but Sirius holds him down by the chest, talking to him, telling him it's alright but it's useless. The pain isn't going away.

Remus rolls over and asks for a blanket and tells Sirius to shut the light off.

"Remus, get up." Sirius says, "Wake up."

Remus mumbles without waking up that he's just gone through a transformation, and his bones are screaming, and bring him a fucking pillow and blanket, please, and maybe a fucking potion for his pain.

"Harry is here, Remus, and we've nothing for pain. I need you to get up and make something."

Remus doesn't seem to be very conscious. He mumbles for Sirius to be a good dog and rolls onto his back, his mouth slightly open, and appears to be asleep. Sirius charges across the room and takes him by the collar, and Remus screams as he forced to his feet.

"Merlin's fucking- what has gotten into you, Sirius?" Remus is unsteady on his legs and Sirius has to keep him from falling over.

Sirius drags the poor werewolf across the room and shoves his face into Harry's, who is still talking to Voldemort and writhing and sweating.

Remus snarls and straightens himself, shoving Sirius so hard that he trips over the table and lands against the wall. For a minute I think Remus is going to kill us all, but he drops to his knees and puts his hand on Harry's forehead.

"What happened?"

Sirius just stares at him.

"_What happened?" _

Sirius is still angry, so I answer, "He killed Voldemort. His leg was broken. Shredded. They fixed it at the Muggle hospital."

Remus is weak but he goes to the kitchen and brews potions for he and Harry's pain, then gets himself a blanket and pillow and falls asleep, snoring in the corner. Before he sleeps he tells Sirius, "Whatever horrendously idiotic thing you've done this time, I can't fix it until I've rested. When did I get so old? I…" and he drifts off to sleep like that.

I lean against the wall but when I doze off Sirius thumps me on the head.

"Fuck off, Arnold Jr. I'm sleeping."

"Boy, wake up. You're not at home anymore."

I sit up and look at him.

"Take it away," Sirius orders, pointing at Harry. I pretend I don't know what he is talking about, but what else would someone order me to do? Of course he wants me to take away a memory, because that is all I am good for.

"Take what away?" I ask innocently.

"All of it." He tears the blanket off Remus and lays it before me on the floor. Then he picks up Harry, who is no longer feverously mumbling because his pain is under control, and puts him on the blanket. "Take it all away."

Harry shivers on the floor.

I stare at Sirius.

"Take. It. Away."

"I-I couldn't I-I-"

"WHY NOT? I'll pay you. I'll pay you extra."

"But that's Harry Potter! He's a hero now."

"A hero," Sirius spits on my shoes.

I star at the gob of spit dripping down my dirty boot and I'm scared. "Shouldn't he be allowed to enjoy his victory over- over-?"

"ENJOY?" Sirius roars. "What does he have to enjoy? Nightmares? Guilt? Fear, pain, death?"

"Sir...who _are_ you?" I ask. It is an accusation. Who are you to decide? Who are you to decide Harry's fate?

"Who am I? I'm Sirius Black. James asked _me _to protect him," Sirius jams his thumb into his chest, "to be his godfather. Not Dumbledore. Not Hagrid. _Me_."

I have no idea what he's talking about, but I've heard of Sirius Black, Sirius Black the murderer, and am suddenly scared as hell. I feel like I'm going to faint.

His face softens. He must see that I am afraid of him. "Take it away. Please. Let him forget that any of this ever happened."

I tighten my grip on my wand.

"He's just a boy," Sirius says. "He can't deal with this kind of pain. It'll drive him mad. He doesn't deserve it. He never asked for it. There is nothing for him now. Nothing worth remembering."

I just stare, and Sirius stares back. He's breathing hard now, looking as though he might cry.

"Anger." He says, his voice strained. "Anger and love for that boy. Other than that, there's NOTHING in here." He slams his flat palms against his chest. "Nothing. I won't see this boy disappear inside his own head. I won't do it, I won't do it, I _WILL NOT_ DO IT."

I stare at the line of spittle on my boot, now pooling on the dusty floor. Sirius begins to pace, shaking, his breath coming in short, pained gasps

"He—" Sirius begins, and chokes. He coughs exaggeratedly and sighs to himself. "He can't end up like me. James would—he just can't end up like me. So do it. Just do it."

Who are you, I want to ask again, but I am too young and stupid. I should be drunk right now and lying in a pool of my own vomit, an udder disappointment to my family, and Arnold Jr. should be going to Mum's at Christmastime every year and she should be saying to him, "Arnold Jr., you've turned out so much better than poor Dashiell, that waste."

I kneel down and put my hands on Harry's forehead.

Crying. A man and woman screaming. Pain and dust and spiders, horrible things. Hissing, snakes, cold dead eyes, and red eyes, rats, broken bones, Dementors.

But laughter, too. So much laughter, light feelings and candy and Quidditch and girls.

No real fear. Not anywhere.

I let go of the boy's face, gasping for air. "I can't do it. There's too much here."

"Yes you can," Sirius tells me roughly, "I've heard about you."

"I can't," I insist.

I am still soaking wet. Nobody has offered me tea or dry clothes. I do the only other spell I can do efficiently, a spell to keep the memories from strangling me, if only for awhile. I can breathe again.

"It's easy to take away the memory of someone's death," I try explaining, "But someone's life— he would remember eventually, if he wants to. It will fight its way back."

"Do it."

"We're talking about fifteen years! He won't know how to eat or tie his shoe-"

Sirius takes me by the neck, his sweaty fist closing round my throat. "You're lying. I've heard Dumbledore speak of you. You're a fucking prodigy. You can erase any year of anyone's life, any minute of anyone's life. You can make people forget their own body parts. You can erase _anything_ you want to. Don't play with me, boy."

_Yes_, I think_, maybe I should remove your memories of Harry and myself._ But I'm too scared.

"It would only be temporary," I say out loud, and this time I am not lying. "All those memories… they would seep back and drive him mad. It's impossible to keep someone's life from them forever."

"Then you'll stay with us. I'll pay you, whatever you want. Stay with us and keep my boy's pain away."

I opened my mouth to refuse when Harry stirs.

"You liar," the boy whimpers, "I don't want… I don't want to kill anybody… I don't want to hurt her…I hurt…"

When I think of Harry Potter I always think of some great warrior in armor, gallantly crusading against Voldemort, but this is just a little boy who should eat more, whose bones break just like anybody's.

I ask Sirius how much he will pay me, and he goes to the cupboard in the kitchen and throws twenty-five Galleons at me and says there are thousands more where that came from, and just fucking do it before Harry wakes up.

I put my hands over the weeping scar, around the boy's ears, over the top of his head, feeling out the memories. They surge forward, and before I get lost in them I notice Sirius glares as if his godson is being molested.

First, the woman and man. Mother. Father. This memory has been sucked to the front and stings there, white hot and blinding.

Obliviate.

_You horrible, worthless boy! Look what you've done to Dudley's tricycle! Don't you run from me, I'll beat you within an inch of your life…_

Obliviate.

_You're a wizard, Harry_.

Obliviate.

_I'm Ron. Ron Weasley. _

Obliviate.

_Your Phoenix is crying…_

Obliviate

_There is only power…_

Obliviate.

_That's it Harry. Stand up nice and tall, just like your father…_

Obliviate.

_Why Harry, you've killed your little girlfriend! What on earth did you do that for? Oh stop, stop it now Harry. Don't be absurd. You know that dead people don't come back to life. What are you doing, Harry? You're going to take the whole building down with that flailing about…_

Obliviate.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Harry Potter who set out one full moon to avenge his father and defeat the monster that had plagued him since before he could remember. He chose this night because no one else would try to help him and end up getting hurt. Sirius would be with Remus because it was a full moon and Ron was sick with the flu and Hermione was in the girl's dorm and wouldn't see him leave. But she did see him, and she woke up Ron and they followed Harry to his Aunt and Uncle's house, where Harry knew from his dreams that Voldemort was waiting for him, when he returned from school for the summer. Only Voldemort only found the house because all the protective spells had been removed from it, because Harry wasn't supposed to return there that summer or ever again, and so nobody would have gotten hurt if Harry had just stayed at Hogwarts that night, and for that he felt crippling, stabbing guilt, even in his sleep.

Ron and Hermione were under the Invisibility Cloak, but Ron fell over a rock and Harry spotted him. Harry turned Ron into to stone so he wouldn't get hurt. He continued into the house and he never saw Hermione until he was murdering her. There is a horrible curse called Imperious and if you use it, someone has to do whatever you want them to. Harry resisted as long as he could but soon enough Hermione was dead and the whole house was in shambles and about to crumble. Voldemort threw his head back to cackle and Harry experienced such a pure form of anger that he waved his hand and Voldemort's head came right off, as if Harry had swung an axe.

But he wasn't dead yet. Voldemort's spirit was strong and black and swirled up out of his bleeding neck like sludge out of a soft-serve apparatus. Harry took a deep breath and forced the sludge to gather right inside of him, into his Scar, into his mouth, into his eyes and nose and ears and skin, and what was inside him was so good and angry and noble that Voldemort's spirit choked and died.

And Harry bled.

He bled and ached, but Harry took Hermione in his arms and carried her to the front yard, because she couldn't really be dead and he didn't want her to be buried alive inside the crumbling house.

Then he went back inside and whispered to his mother and father, _your son is on his way home_, and let the house fall down around him.

* * *

For the next few days Harry is very ill. We have to make sure he is lying on his side because sometimes he vomits and a foul smell is coming from the cast on his leg. Sirius and Remus fight about it. Remus says let me take the fucking thing off and fix the leg myself, and Sirius says no, we're through with magic. But Harry's temperature is sky high and the memories are already starting to return. He keeps us up all night mumbling about Voldemort until he is thrashing and screaming and Remus bolts up and tears the cast away with his wand.

"What are you doing?" Sirius demands.

"I'm saving his life, you selfish fool idiot…"

I admire how fast Remus mends Harry's leg and wonder why Sirius didn't just bring him here in the first place. Remus holds Harry in his lap and makes him drink a pain potion, and Harry's fever breaks, but Remus says he still has to brew something to clear up the gangrene. Goddamn it Sirius, he says, why didn't you give him the antibiotics? And Sirius says the anti-what?

Harry looks around at all of us with weak eyes and we stare back at him.

"My glasses," he whispers.

Remus tells him his glasses were destroyed.

Harry's eyes fill with tears. "I didn't mean to kill her, Sirius," and he rolls over and hides his face.

Sirius has me by the arm. "Obliviate him again."

"What?" Remus says, "Are you mad?"

Sirius keeps starting at me. "Do it."

I look back and forth between the two of them and I don't know what to do. I wish I could ask Harry. Do you _want_ to remember, Harry? How long until you remember, Harry?

Remus has Sirius against the wall again and they are standing very close to each other, so close their noses are almost touching. Both their faces are set.

Then Remus turns to me, and like the Nancy Arnold Jr. always tells me I am, I cringe a bit. Then man is thin and doesn't look healthy but I have seen his strength. But I'm not afraid. Something in me knows that Remus only throws Sirius around because he's so hardheaded it's the only way to get through to him. You can tell they've known each other forever and Remus is much wiser and very gentle and knows what he's doing. I am torn between wanting to run from him and wanting to touch my hand to his forehead to find out why he is the way he is.

"What did you do Harry?" Remus says, and holds out his hand. He wants me to get off the floor. He wants to be at eye level with me. He wants to make it harder for me to lie to him.

All I can do is sputter like I'm standing in the pouring rain and covered in black Muggle Hair Potion.

"What did _he_ make you do to Harry?" He points to Sirius and his eyes are grey and pained.

_Why? _I want to know _why_. Before I can stop myself, I weave my fingers through Remus's hair and press my skin to his temples. He twists my arm around and I shriek like a little baby for him to stop, that's the arm Arnold Jr. broke, and he lets me go and takes me firmly by the shoulders.

I don't want him to have to repeat his question and twist my arm again so I answer quickly, "I took his memories away."

"Memories?" Remus says, turning sharply to Sirius, "What memories?"

"All of them," I say.

"Get out," Remus tells me. I glance at Sirius. "Don't look at him. _Get out._"

I start toward the door but it won't open, and Remus and Sirius are arguing. I think about the money, and I look at Harry, who has turned back over and is wearily watching the fight. As he looks back and forth his eyes have trouble focusing and his mouth moves but nothing comes out. He lifts his head but he's too weak and it falls right back down again. And he weeps. His eyes are swollen because he's never stopped weeping for days, not even in his sleep. According to my textbooks he is just fifteen now, but he looks so tiny it seems he can't be more than ten.

Again I think about taking Sirius' and Remus' memories and keeping Harry all to myself. But he's not a toy. He can't lay on that couch forever, but what will probably happen if I don't do what Sirius asks is that the Ministry officials will put him in a cell at St. Mungo's where he'll be magically bound and unable to do anything but lay on the floor forever and think about what's happened to him.

So it's up to me, because Remus and Sirius aren't getting anywhere with their arguing. Remus says Harry is a strong boy and he can handle it, and it's his pain to deal with Sirius, not yours. Sirius says no, he won't stand to see Harry suffer a moment longer, Harry deserves a clean slate.

Harry looks back and forth, back and forth at them until his eyes roll into his head and he is asleep.

"Hold him, Sirius," I say.

They both look at me, and Sirius squeezes Remus around the chest, pinning his arms to his sides. I feel all around Remus' head. He doesn't struggle, he just asks me quietly, please don't do this, don't do this to Harry. This isn't our decision, he pleads, it is Harry's and no one else's.

I like Remus' memories. A good deal of them are horrible, but they are soft around the edges, and this means he's made peace with them. They are all precious to him and I don't want to take any of them away. Except tonight. I take tonight away. Sirius does a sleep spell on him and again he and Harry sleep painfully in the little one roomed shack.

Remus is a werewolf and it is his deepest shame. When he was a little boy he got really sick but instead of taking him to a hospital, a man in a white truck came with a long white pole with a loop at the end. He put the loop around Remus' neck, and threw the pole over his shoulder, carrying Remus that way, with Remus floating above him like a rain cloud. Remus was taken to a werewolf kennel and put in a small cage where he had to go to the toilet and be sick on newspaper and they tried to feed him steak that wasn't cooked.

When they decided he was well they took him home, but his parents weren't there so they put a collar around his neck and chained him to the front stoop, where he sat for hours and hours and couldn't move. He didn't cry, not once the whole time, until his mother cried when she saw him filthy and chained to the porch. His father carried him to bed and Remus and his mother cried together. His parents never believed that he forgave them for sending him to kennel, right up until the day they died, but he did. He never blamed them.

I can't do it.

Even five years later Harry asks me every day about his scar and I can't tell him where it came from. I haven't grown. I'm still a coward.

But Remus was right. It wasn't our decision, they aren't my memories and I can't hold onto them any longer. If I'm too much of a coward to do it for Harry, I'll do it for myself.

Tonight, Harry Potter will know the truth.

Yeah.


	3. Jamie Dursley and the Letters

CHAPTER THREE

Jamie Dursley and the Letters

Harry drug himself out of black and grey dreams, stumbling down the hall to the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him. His head was aching too badly for bright light; he lit a candle and set it on the runner below the mirror.

Downstairs, his father Sirius bellowed curses as the metal bits and pieces of his motorcycle clattered on the garage floor. The rich, flat smell of Dash's coffee and toast wafted up from where he sat in the front room, feet up in front of the blaring television.

After a splash of cold water on his face, Harry tried brushing his hair forward. It made him look like a child. He brushed it back and was an old man, the scar a huge, red, and ugly blemish against his sunken cheeks. He hated it.

"DAD?" He called. No answer but banging in the garage. "Hey, DASH?"

"Mmm?" Dashiell grunted, sucking peanut butter off his fingers.

"How did I get this scar on my forehead?" Harry felt dizzy when he asked. Or maybe it was just that he felt dizzy all the time now. Had he asked that question before?

Dashiell took an echoing slurp of coffee. Harry could hear him unsticking the peanut butter from his gums. The television muted and for a moment there was nothing but silence all through the house.

Dashiell cleared his throat. "What?"

"How did I get this ugly mark on my head?"

"Well, Hare—edge, edge of the coffee table. You were learning how to walk."

_Ah, _Harry thought, _Maybe that's why I'm so-_ what was the word his father used so lovingly? – _absent-minded. _

He opted to comb his hair no direction at all. That decided, he peeled off his pajamas and threw them in the hamper, then felt around in the darkened bathroom for his suit. Surely Sirius had hung it up here somewhere- ew, no, this is a wet towel, shower curtain, more shower curtain- ah, there it was.

"You look like shit," Dashiell said when Harry came into the front room. He said it loudly in the direction of the garage, as if he weren't talking to Harry at all.

Harry scowled. "Thanks. Thank a lot."

"Not your suit. I'm talking about your pale face. Come here." Dashiell wiped the peanut butter off his face and hands with a dishrag and went to Harry, as it was obvious Harry indignantly had no intention of moving. "It's a nice suit," Dash straightened the lapels. Then for some reason he turned his head and screamed toward the garage, "BUT IT DOESN'T FIT YOU VERY WELL ANYMORE, DOES IT? I THINK YOU'VE LOST SOME WEIGHT."

And Harry's father came in and felt for Harry's temperature. "How are you feeling? You look pale. Do you want some breakfast?"

Harry shook his head. "My head. I slept funny last night, I think."

His father touched the scar briefly, and then both hands were busy straightening Harry's tie. "Maybe you should stay home. I'll phone the twins."

"Dad," Harry stepped away. "Don't fuss. I'm a grown man."

Sirius smiled at this.

"Tell me, Hare," Dash said, "what did you dream about?"

This was Dash's daily question, and Harry tried to avoid it at all costs, because repeating his dreams sometimes made him feel funny and even ill, and he didn't understand why. Instead he lied about his dreams or tried not to remember what they were about.

"I don't remember," he answered. But as soon as the words dropped from his mouth the grey and black dreams swirled into a crisp picture—a ceiling, only a sky, only a ceiling, only it was a sky, only… and then he was in a… what was it called? The names of people dead and gone engraved on stones jutting from the earth… a graveyard… and…

Black. The next thing Harry knew, his head had lolled backwards and he was gazing at the ceiling. He would have fallen over if Sirius didn't have him by the shoulders.

"Eyes," Harry said. "Red eyes."

He looked to his father for an explanation, but his father was scowling at Dash, who was staring at the Christmas tree, its lights twinkling feebly in the June sunlight.

"We've got to get rid of this blasted tree, Sirius." He knelt to replace an ornament the cat had swatted down.

Sirius's nostrils flared ever so slightly. "Dashiell Peasegood."

Dash's knees cracked when he stood. "Alright then. Stand still, Harry. You've got something on the back of your suit." He whispered weird words, brushing at Harry's shoulder blades.

Harry's head didn't ache anymore, and when his uncle asked him what he dreamed about last night, he couldn't remember.

"…think he should stay home…" His father was saying.

"No," Harry said, "I'm alright now."

He turned and went out the door. He had that light feeling in his head again, a comfortable soft place that made it hard to concentrate. He dropped his keys twice in the driveway before he managed to unlock his car. And something else was wrong…

"Harry," his uncle rushed out of the house, twirling a pair of square, rimless spectacles.

Ah, so that was it.

"Do you have your wallet?"

Harry felt his bottom. "Yes."

"What about your driver's license? Look in your wallet."

Check.

Dash looked worried and was wheezing thickly like he often did after one of Harry's forgetful spells. "Drive careful, Harry. If you feel dizzy pull over a minute and wait."

Harry nodded.

Dash felt Harry's forehead, just as Sirius did minutes ago. "Call me when you get there. Or have one of the twins, alright?"

"Dash, I'm- I'm-" Harry couldn't remember what he wanted to say. Some mornings it was like this. Like his thoughts would gather in a confused, shredded clump in his brain and explode before he could turn them into words. Slowly they would flutter back again, incomplete.

Luckily, Dashiell and Sirius always knew what he was trying to say.

"I know Harry. You're a grown man and we shouldn't fuss. Right?"

Harry said nothing.

"Why do you look so sad?" Dash asked, pointlessly trying to smooth one of Harry's cowlicks and straightening the tie the Sirius had already straightened.

"I don't know." Harry lied.

But he did know. He wasn't sure if he was a grown man, because he couldn't remember how old he was.

* * *

Jamie hated summer. Watching the messy-haired dopey guy across the street attempt to open his car door every morning was always the highlight of his day, and that happened so damn early in the morning… then he had nothing to look forward to but watching Dudley dance grotesquely around the house with his new wife, Rosemary, the two of them cooing at each other like drunken doves. They looked ridiculous together because Dudley resembled an uncooked Christmas ham and Rosemary's neck was so long it looked as if her head might fall right off, should the wind hit her at the proper angle.

It had to be the pearls. Dudley had bought her these "authentic" cultured pearls off the television, and that led to five more strands that she liked to wear in creamy rows up her freakish neck.

Jamie wanted it to be September, when they would flattened him with plastic kisses and ship him off to Smeltings, where getting beaten by sticks would at the very least be an interesting change.

Dudley and Rosemary weren't his real parents—but they called themselves his "foster parents." Dudley was only Jamie's dead grandmother Marge's nephew, which was a far enough away relation to give him comfort. His real mother, along with most of the Dursley family, had died in a terrible accident when Jamie was six. Apparently, due to some faulty construction, the entire house had come down on their heads. Luckily Jamie had been staying with his father for the weekend (his parents divorced when he was two) and Jamie survived. He'd lived happily with his father until he was eight, when his father died too, this time in a car crash.

It was odd that his father died in a car crash, because his father didn't drive or even own a car, but when he asked about this detail Dudley said that his father had been riding a bus that crashed _into_ a car and to stop mulling over the gory details.

Jamie had lived with Dudley now for three whole years. Dudley had built his house right on top of where all the other Dursleys had died, and though Jamie often heard and saw the ghosts of his dead relatives (who normally whined too much to be even remotely scary), Dudley never saw a thing and cursed him for sharing his visions aloud.

Now the goofy guy across the street was sitting in the driver's seat of his car with the door open, his long legs stretched out across the driveway. He was hunched over and wiping his eyes. Jamie supposed he was crying, which was weird, because he had never seen a man cry. Rosemary cried all the time, mostly when she couldn't have something, or she thought Dudley had drank too much, and then she would wail, "Dudley, Dudley darling, you've got to stop drinking!" and it was pathetic.

Both Jamie and the goofy man saw the great brown owl swoop down and drop something on Jamie's head. The owl gave a hoot that sounded funnily like a _Congrats_ and flew away. The man across the street put his glasses back on and watched the owl until it was gone, rubbing at his head.

Jamie turned the envelope round and round in his hands, but never got a chance to open it because his fat foster father dove from the house and almost knocked Jamie down, snatching the letter and tearing it up right there on the front stoop.

"Er-" Dudley stuttered, "Never accept letters from strangers."

"It wasn't a stranger, Dud. It was a fucking owl."

"Watch your mouth, Jamie."

"No."

"Er--here," his foster father pressed money into his hand, and sniggering, said, "Why don't you go ask the retarded man across the street to sell you a pair of shoes?"

Jamie swore that Dudley must have known the goofy man with glasses and his wheezy uncle (and uncle who was nearly the same age as the goofy guy, and that was odd, too) across the street. His foster father found it _so _bloody amusing that the man was "retarded" and sometimes when Rosemary was in bed with one of her fake migraines he would sit with Jamie on the stoop and make jokes about the man that Jamie didn't understand and probably wouldn't find funny even if he did.

Dudley _most definitely_ knew the older man who lived in that house, because the older man had come over more than once, screaming and cursing, his fingers tight around a half-empty jug of whiskey. Dudley would yell back, "Fuck off, Sirius, you murderous bastard, or I'll have my foot in your arse!"

Dud had always said that the goofy guy was an idiot who should be shot and put out of his misery, and his uncle was diseased, and that Sirius was a "crazy old bastard," so Jamie wonderednow why he was being sent to buy shoes from one of them.

Then it came to him, because he had always been smarter than Dudley, even when he was a little baby puking down his mother's shoulder.

"Dud, don't try to distract me," Jamie said smartly, "What was that letter?"

Dudley turned purple, his little eyes shifting back and forth as he smirked. Jamie had a feeling he was making sure his wife wasn't in earshot. "An invitation to be a freak in a school for freaks. Ha-ha! Go on… ask the retarded shoe salesman."

Jamie wasn't a freak. Why would someone invite him to a school for freaks?

"You're not making any sense, Dud. Do I need to tell Rosemary that you didn't really go miniature golfing with the guys last Saturday?"

Dudley purpled again, his pathetic attempt at a mustache twitching and glinting in the morning light. "Just go buy some shoes, boy, and there's another twenty where that came from. I have to… er… nail the postbox shut."

Jamie Dursley crumpled the money in his fist and took off across the street. He had no intention of buying shoes with the money, but wanted to play video games and figured he could hit up the retarded man for a ride to the mall, maybe even convince the dumb little guy to buy him a pack of smokes.

"Yes! Yes, ask _him _about the letter!" Dudley called after him, laughing evilly.

* * *

Dash returned to the house to find Sirius angrily mopping up a puddle of coffee. Near his feet were the gathered shards of a coffee pot.

"What happened?"

"It fell," Sirius replied, but he was lying. Coffee was splattered all over the cupboards and counters behind him; he'd had thrown it at the wall. Dash sat at the dining room table, drew his boots up so Sirius could mop around him, and tried to take a deep breath. "We need to talk, Sirius." His voice was squeaky and weak.

Sirius let the mop fall to the floor with a _smack. _ "No doubt we need to talk. _You _need to stop being so goddamned sloppy. Last night I caught that boy standing in the kitchen crying because he couldn't eat his cereal. Do you know why?"

"It's not me. He—"

"Because he couldn't remember what a spoon was, that's why. Nevermind that he was trying to eating cereal an hour after we fed him dinner. If this happens one more time—"

"I'm going to tell him, Sirius."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I know you're afraid he'll be angry with you, but-"

"Not again, Dashiell. I won't hear it."

"It's not right."

"I'll give you a raise."

Dash let his booted feet fall on the floor, leaned forward and tried to look intense. "I don't want a _fucking_ raise."

"Of course you do."

"This is it, Sirius. I won't do it anymore. Find someone else."

"Don't be absurd."

"I mean it."

"What on earth will you do? Where will you go?"

"I'll do something. Something- something else. Not this. Ever again."

Sirius laughed. "What do you have in mind? Plumbing? Real estate? You can hardly use magic to tie your shoes."

_What would I do?_ Dash thought. _Go on the dole? Live with Arnold Jr.?_ He was quickly losing the courage he'd mustered. "He's lonely. He's white a sheet-"

"He's anemic."

"MUGGLE NONSENSE!" Dash snapped, and Sirius jumped in surprise. "What do those backward meddling _twats _know about the human body? They also think that at twenty-years-old he's had multiple—whatever you call them. Strikes."

"Strokes!" Sirius said. Growing weary of cleaning up the glass, he yanked his wand from its hiding place in the very back of the flatware drawer and in seconds the shards and coffee had vanished. "Multiple strokes! And maybe he _has_ had them, considering the carelessness with which you've made him well lately."

"Listen to you, '_made him well_.' You've convinced yourself that's what we're doing, haven't you?" Dash crossed his arms. "Made him well indeed."

Sirius sighed heavily and ran a hand over his face.

"You don't want him like this either," Dash tried again, very gently. "Why else would you have moved us right across the street from that fat lub cousin of his?"

"You know why."

"I forget."

"BECAUSE THEY'D NEVER THINK TO LOOK ACROSS THE STREET FROM WHERE IT ALL HAPPENED!"

_You know no one's looking anymore, _Dash wanted to say, but Sirius was getting angry and like usual Dash's conviction was seeping out through his toes.

"You're afraid there'll be no need for you anymore," Sirius said, "That's all."

Dash's eyes stung. "You know that's a lie. Yes, I could make him emptier than a footless shoe, but he'd never come back. We're _keeping _him muddled, can you understand that? He's muddled because he's _trying _to remember. He _wants _to remember."

"Hogwash. He's just fine. You just need to stop erasing what you're not supposed to. He's otherwise a perfectly happy boy."

"He's not a boy anymore, Sirius. He's a man. We can't keep him like this."

"Yes, we can. He's fine. A little headache here and there is nothing, comparatively."

"He'll forgive you. He'll understand that you just wanted to keep him safe. He'll—"

"THERE'S NOTHING TO FORGIVE!" Sirius roared. "I want those old memories gone. Permanently. _Permanently._" He disappeared into the garage, banging and cursing as if trying to drown the sound of his guilt.

* * *

"Hey Mister, your forehead is bleeding."

So it was. Damn it. Harry dug in his glove box, found an old McDonald's napkin, and pressed it to the scar. He had to leave, quickly, before Dashiell or his father came out and saw. And this little boy. Who was he? There was something about his eyes, green like Harry's, and the roundness of his blonde head that made Harry's head pound.

"What can I do for you, kid?"

"You don't act that retarded."

Harry brought the napkin away, held it at arms length. Blood-colored lightning. "Should I?"

"I don't know. Wow, mister, wicked scar! How'd you get it?"

"I—I don't remember. What do you want?" He said again, "I'm late for work."

"Give us a ride, will you?"

_Ouch. _Harry didn't like wondering. It always, _always _made his head hurt.

"What's wrong?"

Harry dabbed again at his scar. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. "Where did you come from?"

"Across the street. My dad sent me. You _do _work at the shoe store at the mall, don't you?"

The shoe store. Damn. Harry looked at his watch but couldn't seem to read it. He squinted down at it until his face was an inch from the glass.

"It's 8:45 in the morning," the boy said. "Are you…"

"I'm fine. Thanks." Harry swung himself into the car, his feet searching for the clutch and brake. He managed to find them, and he irritably threw the car in reverse, but-

"Shouldn't you turn it on first?" The boy was saying. Somehow he'd very quickly gotten into the passenger side. His seat belt clicked.

"Of course," Harry said, fumbling for his keys.

The car hummed and idled and Harry knew he should pull out now, but- oh yes. His glasses. He pawed blearily around for them. Dashboard, no. Glove compartment, no. Floor, no…

"What are you looking for?" The boy said.

"Glasses."

The boy sniggered. "On your face."

Oh. Harry took them off, wiped them on his suit, and replaced them. A little better. The car lurched backward and the engine died.

"Damn it," Harry said, turning the key once more.

"Want me to drive?"

Harry snorted, throwing his hand over the seat, squinting but backing confidently out of the driveway. "You, drive? You must be eight years old."

"I'm eleven," Jamie informed him, "Next year I'm going to Smeltings."

"Smeltings." Harry winced as another pain stabbed through his head. "That's- that's nice."

Sure, when they arrived at _Two Left Feet,_ Harry hit the curb (he liked to drive fast), accidentally drove up onto the sidewalk and had to back up a little, but he felt better. His brain was waking up and world was crisper.

Jamie, stiff as a board, held tight to either side of the passenger seat. "You drive like a maniac."

"So I'm told," Harry replied, inspecting his scar in the rearview. It was puffy but nothing that would shock his bosses into sending him home. He moved a clump of hair over it, and, removing his keys from the ignition, smiled at the boy and raised his eyebrows. "Ready?"

_Two Left Feet _had no reputation for being a classy establishment, let alone did it have anything an eleven-year-old boy would be interested in wearing. The store was famous for things like three foot platforms and stilettos with flashing lights. Sometimes Harry would get complaints about the shoes; apparently they sometimes did things that weren't advertised. Harry couldn't remember exactly what. What he did remember is that people would call him, and after the dizzy spell it usually gave him, he would report it to his bosses, who would fall over each other laughing. Then they would tell Harry to sit down in the break room while they called the customer back. Harry would sit and usually his scar would bleed, but luckily it always stopped before Dashiell came and brought him lunch. After lunch he would feel all stupid and what was that word again? _Absent-minded. _At least his head didn't hurt.

His bosses were inseparable twins called Fred and George. They owned the store and were the greatest bosses anyone could ask for. They never got mad when Harry was late because he'd forgotten where he was going, or when he had to stay home with one of his headaches. Most of all, what Harry loved about Fred and George is that they didn't look at him like everyone else did.

His Uncle Dash was the _worst_ when it came to looking at him like that-- like they felt sorry for him, but also as if they were hiding something. And people he had known for years and years looked at him like he was a stranger.

Like Ron. Ron was Fred and George's younger brother and Harry's "best friend," or so he said. Harry didn't know how Ron could be a best friend when they only saw each other three or four times a year. When they did have a visit, Sirius would always be pacing a few feet away, looking at Ron funny and he wouldn't go away no matter what Harry said. After Ron left, Dash would have a huge fight with Sirius, about what Harry couldn't remember because it made his head hurt trying to.

Harry supposed Ron was dangerous and so it was hard to trust him, even if an important part of having a best friend is being able to trust them. And Ron got so damned angry when Harry couldn't follow the conversation or his mind floated off somewhere while Ron was talking. Harry felt that as a "best friend" Ron should be more understanding.

Today there was a man in a ripped cloak sitting on the bench outside of the store. When he saw Harry he stood and held out his hand. He was completely grey-haired though he didn't look very old, and there was an urgency in his eyes that made Harry's heart beat faster.

Harry stopped to dig in his pockets. His hands shook and his head ached terribly. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't have any change—"

"Harry Potter," the man said, "Is it you?"

Harry squinted, studying the man for something he recognized. "That's me, sir… do I know you?"

"I'm an old friend." The man came very close to him, too close, and shoved a parchment envelope into his hand. "You look terrible Harry. You're trying hard to come back, aren't you?"

Behind them, the door of _Two Left Feet _swung open.

"Get away from him!" Fred lunged at the man

"Show it to no one," the man whispered frantically. Fred tried to drag him away, and the man put his face very close to Harry's, staring hard into his eyes, "Come home, Harry. We need you."

Fred tore the man away, grunting as he flung him into the parking lot. "Stay away!"

"Remember, Harry!" The man called to him, and then he _disappeared into thin air_.

The sight was more than Harry could tolerate. Before Fred could turn around and see, Harry shoved the letter deep into his jacket pocket, felt his legs give out, and was unconscious before he hit the ground.

To be continued. Please review!


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